Nanas Sandbakkels Recipes

SANDBAKKELSE (SAND TARTS)

Steps:

• In a bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 5-7 minutes. Add egg and extracts. Blend in flour. Cover and chill for 1-2 hours or overnight. Preheat oven to 375°. Using ungreased sandbakkelse molds, press 1 tablespoon dough into each mold. Bake cookies in molds until they appear set and just begin to brown around the edges, 10-12 minutes. Cool cookies for 2-3 minutes in molds. When cool to the touch, remove from molds. To remove more easily, gently tap with a knife and carefully squeeze the sides of the mold.

NORWEGIAN SANDBAKKEL

Steps:

• Mix together the flour and sugar.
• Cut in the butter until blended.
• In a separate small bowl mix the water, almond extract, and egg yolk.
• Using a fork mix together the wet and dry ingredients into a dough.
• Knead until smooth.
• Wrap the ball well with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Roll dough into 1 inch balls and press with your thumb down into the cookie molds or small tart molds.
• Press so that the dough is all of the way up the side of the molds.
• Prick the unbaked tarts with a fork to keep them from puffing up and deforming during baking.
• Bake cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown.
• Cool cookies in molds on a wire rack for 10 minutes before carefully removing to cool completely.
• Store in an airtight container until served.

SANDBAKKELS (NORWEGIAN ALMOND COOKIES)

Steps:

• Cream together butter, shortening, and sugar.
• Add egg, egg yolk, and almond extract. Beat until well mixed.
• Add flour until you have a fairly stiff dough.
• Refrigerate for 1 hour.
• Press about 2.5- 3 teaspoonful dough into a greased 3-inch sandbakkel tin. Start at bottom and press evenly and thinly as possible up the sides. (Note these do not fill the tin, they make a shell).
• To make a pattern on the inside (optional), take an empty sandbakkel tin and put it on top of the filled sandbakkel tin and press lightly, carefully remove the top tin.
• Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until lightly brown.
• Remove from oven and place upside down on cooling rack. Tap bottoms while still warm to remove from sandbakkel tins.
• Makes about 5 dozen.

NANA'S SANDBAKKELS

Steps:

• Cream butter Beat in sugar - as little beating as possible to mix it in Add egg Add almond extract Add ground almonds slowly add in flour, a little at a time. Should just form a ball so may need a little less or more depending on weather, size of egg, etc. Most recipes recommend shaping into a ball, wrapping in plastic wrap, and chilling in fridge for at least an hour. We never did this. Press into tins (again, here is a variable. Nana never greased the tins. I find that I have to liberally spray with Pam to even have a chance of getting them out of the tin.) Tip on pressing into tin - should be fairly thin amount of dough. Do not fill completetly to the top of the tin. Place on cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. (They should be just barley starting to brown at top edges). Remove from tins (again a variable. What we found worked best is to remove them when they cool just enough to be able to handle the tin. My father has this job and slams them down on the table to get them out. The hope is that they drop out. Some do, some don't. Other people let them cool completely and say they just easily tap out. I never had success with this. My Mom stores them in old fashioned cookie tins (like the tins that gift popcorn comes in). She places a sheet of wax paper in the bottom. Stacks cookies in. Tops with another sheet of wax paper. THen she tapes the whole tin shut with freezer tape and stores them in the freezer. They really do keep well for months (in a manual defrost freezer).